Weekly Reflections

An Oasis is a good place to pause and reflect. Each of my weeks provides ample inspiration in terms of topics; from coaching sessions, conversations with family and friends, my own reading, or one of the many podcasts I absorb when on the move. A topic will resonate with me early in the week and I get great pleasure from the iterative process of drafting, revising, polishing, and finalising each essay. Then comes the selection of a suitable photo, usually a product of yet another creative hobby of mine. I invite you take a little time out, to create your own six-minute oasis, find a comfortable chair, and read. You will hopefully find some inspiration from or a degree of identification in these Weekly Reflections. If you do, feel free to subscribe to this section. You will then receive future installments directly by email. Also, feel free to share the link among your circle of friends and associates. Finally, feedback and comments are always most welcome. EnJOY!

Community

Roots

At the end of this seemingly successful treatment, Rowland Hazard, now several months dry, was confident that he could remain abstinent and return to the US to continue his recovery. He only got as far as Paris, however, where someone asked him the wrong question: `Would you like a glass of champagne, Sir?´
Returning to Zurich with his tail between his legs, distraught and depressed, he once again sought out Dr Jung. He asked him what hope, if any, there was for him. Jung was frank with his American client…

Community

Samhain

My father’s death and, in particular, how he handled the experience, has also shown itself to be a great gift. By leaving this incarnation in a conscious state of humility, faith, and gratitude, he demonstrated how best we can embrace the ultimate human challenge. Almost half a century later, I still find myself unwrapping further layers of this precious gift…

Leadership

Outrage

Trauma is not what happened to us but rather how we reacted to what we experienced. This often takes the form of belief systems and behaviours formed initially to ensure our survival in circumstances we experienced as existentially threatening. In the long term, these may prove to be counter productive for our growth and development…

Mental Fitness

Nostalgia

With the help of loved-ones, mentors, and wise teachers, I learned to see through this illusion and to differentiate between pain and suffering, no easy task for one who grew up in a kind of hieroglyphics world, where real things or emotions were never said or done or even thought, but only ever expressed by proxy. Slammed doors and the rolling of eyes count among the more obvious clues…

Mental Fitness

Old Ideas

There is a neurological explanation for this phenomenon. Neural pathways develop over time in line with our experience and corresponding behaviours. They become etched into our brains, offering themselves as the default, `the only way´. Like the diagonal paths that traverse the lawns of poorly designed public parks, our past behaviour dictates how information flows and is processed in our brains…

Mental Fitness

Inner Guidance

What else would you do with a child who was clearly overwhelmed?´ I asked myself. Empathise, – put myself in his shoes. The origin of the term despondency points to some solemn promise having been broken, – the promise perhaps of protection, nurturing, and trust. I would act in a manner that seeks to protect, provides nurturing, and aims to rebuild trust. That means being fully present, free of judgement…

Self-care

Falling Apart

Moreover, in an effort to `compensate´ for our parents’ shortcomings, we may have manifested adult levels of maturity far too early in life. While I certainly cultivated strengths such as organisational skills, self-reliance, and independence along the way ― strengths that have served me well in many situations as an adult, ― having to be the emotionally mature person in my relationship with my parent was confusing and has left wounds in its wake…

Mental Fitness

Sacred Geometry

One further innovation of PQ is the daily practice, neatly and effectively packaged on the PQ App, which facilitates the regular practice which might otherwise fizzle out when we rely on traditional approaches. A transformation process is generally made up of 20% insights and 80% practice, meaning that regular, ongoing practice is essential for it to succeed and be sustained…

Mental Fitness

Turning Points

Acting out the addiction solves the problem of life’s unbearability, that unbearable feeling of being in our own skin. It is a solution that works. However, as it gathers pace and becomes the driving force in our lives, we become increasingly unable to see the unfurling of its destruction. The deeper we dig ourselves into a hole, the less capable we become of seeing that we are in a hole. Denial and delusion each play a role in this…

Transformation

Gifts

`Flow´ is the state in which we are so engrossed in an activity that we lose all track of time. This is not to be confused with the state of `zoning out´ as many of us do when watching Netflix series or scrolling endlessly on social media. How do we tell the difference? After activities carried out in flow, we feel energised and have a sense of gratitude and accomplishment. This is what I feel after a period of gardening, coaching, writing, or dancing.

Community

Trapped

As long as we are constantly hijacked by our Saboteurs, fear rules our lives and the lives of those around us. This takes place sometimes very obviously, sometimes more subtly. Fear’s toolbox contains a very powerful device that, if not addressed and relinquished, will ensure that the old order will forever rule the day. This device is denial. For many years I stewed in the juice of denial. Sara Bareilles describes the dynamic eloquently in her sublime song “Orpheus“:
Missing the world
The one you knew
The one where everything made sense because you
didn’t know the truth…..

Indeed, many of us didn’t know the truth for long stretches of our lives. Denial has an important role to play in our survival…

Leadership

Mind The Gap!

My general observations lead me to conclude that we are either in autopilot and react in line with the coping mechanisms and survival strategies we developed before our fourth birthday (approximately) or, having developed sufficient awareness, mindfulness, and mental fitness, we learn to pause before responding to whatever stimuli cross our paths in a conscious, loving manner – beneficial to the healing, growth, and joy of all concerned. The term “autopilot” may be considered charitable. Some would call it “sleepwalking through life” (Dr Allen Berger) or even refer to a “Zombie” existence. And of course, this is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon…

PQ Mental Fitness

Balance

So, it was really telling when, in a recent yoga lesson, we went though balance exercises which included the Vrikshasana (The Tree Pose, where standing on one foot we bring the other to the inside of our upper thigh), that the terror of childhood – as a felt state – returned. My heart began to race; I began to sweat and couldn’t maintain my balance for longer that twenty seconds. Of even more interest was the fact that my breathing froze. Despite all the insights and, indeed, practice in so many other modalities and situations, here we had the default patterns re-asserting themselves immediately, and with a vengeance…

Book your free session now!

Translate »